Re: [regrep] UK Government Registry Requirements

["David RR Webber" <david@drrw.info>]

Paul,

 

OK - got it.  I was aware of that situation too.  Too many

choices!  Hopefully some CAM templates can help

smooth out the rough edges here.  For instance a

sub-assembly could contain rules for all three formats

and then a context parameter would drive creation of

the right format based on use.

 

Cheers, DW.

----- Original Message -----

From: Paul Spencer

To: David RR Webber ; Peter Kacandes ; regrep

Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 2:05 PM

Subject: RE: [regrep] UK Government Registry Requirements

David,

 

I would just re-iterate that addresses are used for more than delivering mail. If you have Royal Mail there, you have one aspect of addressing in the UK. However, this address format is totally different from that used by, for example, local authorities in the UK. If you look at the Election Markup Language, you will see that we use "structured" and "unstructured" addresses to cater for just this problem. In the International version, both map to the CIQ formats. In the UK version, one maps to addresses based on some ISO standard, and the other to the British Standard (BS7666).

 

Regards

 

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: David RR Webber [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent: 17 January 2004 23:02
To: Paul Spencer; Peter Kacandes; regrep
Subject: Re: [regrep] UK Government Registry Requirements

Paul,

 

I'm certain the way forward here is a blend of the UPU work, CIQ and

then using CAM as the processing engine.

 

The Royal Mail rep' to the UPU has ensured that the UPU has the

right semantics and rules for UK postal addresses.  I agree some

of it is surprisingly gnarly.  When they changed to the post code

system back twenty+ years ago it was a great step forward in

automation - but I was amazed to find out how many times the

seamingly obvious system is actually broken by local rules.

 

What we are looking at is taking those formal UPU rules and

encoding them in CAM, and then using the content reference

system to equate to the CIQ dictionary and UPU dictionary.

 

Once we have that - we can also look at storing the

individual element noun semantics in the registry. 

 

I believe we have the technology means to do this now -

all we need is resource and time to actually put it in

place.

 

Thanks, DW

----- Original Message -----

From: Paul Spencer

To: David RR Webber ; Peter Kacandes ; regrep

Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 9:32 AM

Subject: RE: [regrep] UK Government Registry Requirements

I know that John Borras is already heavily involved in this, so I don't intend to start unless invited by him. I think the difficulty is mapping the British Standard onto the CIQ format. Even if you can, and I am sure there are ways, there are local semantics to incorporate (such as for the Unique Property Reference Number) that require a means of localizing the semantics. Hence my earlier comment about getting you excited (since I am sure CAM can help here).

 

Regards

 

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: David RR Webber [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent: 15 January 2004 21:04
To: Paul Spencer; Peter Kacandes; regrep
Subject: Re: [regrep] UK Government Registry Requirements

Paul,

 

Returning to the addressing stuff - the OASIS CIQ work and

related to that the UPU work is extremely fine-grained.

 

The level of detail of not just the XML elements - but the semantics,

rules and formats are covered.  There are roughly five address formats

for each postal service - as you point out - its not just about

delivering bits of mail.  The cultural rules on address formatting are

also very important - as is being able to handle addresses of

say - waterpumping stations and power substations for utilities.

 

So - you will find that the UPU particularly has a great deal of

semantics on all this.

 

The CAM has been upgraded to cover off what the UPU needs,

and so the ultimate goal from the enduser experience is to

have an address object - that they input context into -

such as locale and use - and have the XML autoconfigure

to that.

 

We have been busy looking at this in significant detail.

 

Thanks, DW.